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Historian Amy Henderson ofthe National Portrait Gallerycovers the best of pop cultureand recently wrote about the

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March 13, 2013Why the Department Store Brought Freedom for the Turn of the Century Woman

The new series “Mr. Selfridge” begins airing March 31 on PBS.

For Downton Abbey fans wondering how to spend their time until seasonfour begins next year, PBS is offering a little something to dull the pain.Starting March 31st, we’ll be able to indulge our frothy fantasies with “Mr.Selfridge,” a new series replete with Edwardian finery, intricate plots andengaging actors.

Inspired by Lindy Woodhead’s 2007 biography, Shopping, Seduction & Mr.Selfridge, about department store magnate Harry Gordon Selfridge, thenew Masterpiece Theater series starring Jeremy Piven in the title role,makes an important connection: “If you lived at Downton Abbey, youshopped at Selfridge’s.”

The American-born Selfridge (1856-1947) learned the retail trade in the years when dry goods outlets werebeing replaced by dazzling urban department stores. Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia, Marshall Field’s inChicago and Gimbels in New York were vast “palaces of abundance” that treated shoppers like pamperedpets. These stores made shopping entertaining, competing for attention with tea rooms, barber shops,

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fashion shows and theatrical presentations.

John Wanamaker helped pioneer the concept of the department store in Philadelphia. Courtesy of the NationalPortrait Gallery

In a twist of irony, shopping also provided a platform for women’s empowerment and for the risingemancipation movement. The modern “new woman” rode bicycles and worked in cities and appeared inpublic alone without fear of scandal. To women who embraced a modern public identity, department storesbecame a safe haven where they could convene without guardians or escorts. Shopping was a declaration ofindependence. And the fun was in the details. Fashion was always changing so there was plenty of reason toload up shopping bags and come back for more.

Setting the stage with as much hoopla as possible, the art of selling had became as much a “show” as anytheatrical venture. Beautifully appointed, Field’s, Gimbels and Wanamker’s were glittering showplaces,bathed in the glow of newly invented high-wattage electric lighting. And shopper’s found paradise enjoyingthe displays of exciting new goods in the large plate glass windows. John Wanamaker, whose Philadelphiadepartment store reflected the newest techniques in salesmanship—smart advertising and beautifullydisplayed merchandise—even exhibited Titians and Manets from his personal art collection.

The first Selfridges on Oxford Street. Photo by Russ London, courtesy of Wikimedia

Harry Selfridge got his start as a stock boy at Marshall Field’s landmark Chicago store. For 25 years, heclimbed rung-by-rung the proverbial corporate ladder until he became Field’s partner, amassing aconsiderable personal fortune along the way. But it wasn’t enough to quench an insatiable ambition and ona trip to London in 1906, he had a “Eureka” moment. Noting that London stores lacked the latest sellingtechniques popular in America, Selfridge took his leave from Field’s, and opened a London emporium. Always a dreamer, but quite practical as well, he chose a site ideally situated to attract thousands of people,traveling the Central Line—the London Underground that had opened just six years earlier and wouldbecome a boon to West End retailers.

Opening for business on March 15, 1909, the store became a commercial phenomenon, attracting a millionpeople during its first week. A London columnist reported that it was second only to Big Ben as a touristfavorite. The store was a marvel of its day—five stories high with three basement levels, a roof-top terraceand more than 100 departments and visitor services, including a tea room, a barber shop, a hair salon, alibrary, a post office, sumptuous ladies’ and gentlemen’s cloakrooms, a rifle range, a nursing station and aconcierge who could book West End show tickets or a passage to New York. The store’s massive six acres offloor space was gorgeously designed with wide open-plan vistas; brilliant lighting and trademark greencarpeting throughout. Modern Otis “lifts” whisked customers quickly from floor-to-floor. “A store, which isused every day,” Selfridge said, “should be as fine a thing and, in its own way, as ennobling a thing as achurch or a museum.”

Alice Paul of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery

Sending a clear message at the 1913 march in Washington, D.C. Courtesy of the American History Museum

The opening coincided with the burgeoning suffrage movement. The same year, Alice Paul—a youngAmerican Quaker who moved to London to work on the British suffrage movement—made headlines whenshe disrupted the Prime Minister’s speech by throwing her shoes and yelling, “Votes for women!” Politicallyawakened, women felt newly empowered in the marketplace and at the department store in particularwhere they could shop independently, without a chaperone and without fear of causing scandal for doingso. Selfridge himself understood this, once explaining “I came along just at the time when women wantedto step out on their own. They came to the store and realized some of their dreams.”

The act of shopping may have opened doors for turn-of-the-century women, but the dream of suffragewould require organized political engagement for ensuing generations. On her return to the United States,Paul became a leader in the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In March 1913, she organizeda massive parade in Washington to demand a Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote.The 19th Amendment was ratified seven years later on August 18, 1920; in 1923 Alice Paul drafted an EqualRights Amendment that would guarantee women’s equality. Congress passed the ERA half a century laterin 1972, but of course not enough states have yet voted for its ratification.

Meanwhile, the enticing real-life story of Mr. Selfridge and his department store will take us back to a timewhen women wore corsets and ankle-length dresses, and couldn’t vote. But they could shop. And perhapsunwittingly, Harry Selfridge furthered their ambitions when he said: “the customer is always right.”

Posted By: Amy Henderson — Art and Culture,History,National Portrait Gallery,People,Smithsonian Institution | Link | Comments (0)

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